


Guide Me Home

by BeautifulFiction



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26546038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulFiction/pseuds/BeautifulFiction
Summary: 'You have no idea where we are, do you, Sire?'Arthur glared over his shoulder, biting back a smile when Merlin merely raised a challenging eyebrow. Anyone else would be suitably cowed, bowing and scraping in apology. Not Merlin, who had insulted him from the day they met and had never seen a good reason to stop in the years since.‘You’re lost!’'Absolutely not,' Arthur replied.
Relationships: Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 124





	Guide Me Home

Arthur Pendragon, Crown Prince of Camelot, was not lost. He knew these lands like the back of his hand: had ridden them since he could get on a horse and patrolled them since he was old enough to take up a sword. The notion that he could lose his way a bare stone's throw from the castle, even in a fog as thick as this, was absurd. 

'You have no idea where we are, do you, Sire?' 

Arthur glared over his shoulder, biting back a smile when Merlin merely raised a challenging eyebrow. Anyone else would be suitably cowed, bowing and scraping in apology. Not Merlin, who had insulted him from the day they met and had never seen a good reason to stop in the years since.

‘You’re lost!’

'Absolutely not,' Arthur replied.

'Yes, you are. I told you hunting today was a bad idea.' He sounded ludicrously smug, and Arthur fought back the urge to throw something at him. Knowing his luck, as well as Merlin’s inherent clumsiness, he'd knock him out and end up having to carry him back to Camelot.

'The sun was shining when we set out,' Arthur grumbled, staring around the small clearing at the fog that loitered between the trees, turning the trunks to nothing but smudged shadows. It drifted in patches, sometimes a distant veil, other times a shroud that made it impossible to see his own hand in front of his face. He supposed he should consider himself lucky that he'd not lost Merlin in the murk. Gods alone knew what might have become of his hapless servant then.

The thought sent a shudder of unease down Arthur's spine. If he were honest with himself, Merlin was far more than just a servant. Perhaps he always had been. No one else knew Arthur quite so well, nor treated him like a person first and a prince almost as an afterthought. 

Over time, their initial animosity had eased away. Now, despite their disparity in rank, Arthur was almost certain there was no one else in Camelot who he could consider a better friend. The thought of losing Merlin, even temporarily, was one that sat ill upon his shoulders.

'Get me my compass, will you? Assuming you remembered to pack it, of course.' He held out a demanding hand, shifting his weight over to one hip in affected arrogance as Merlin sighed and dug through the bag on his shoulder. In theory, it would have carried their kills back to the castle kitchens. In practice, it was a sad, empty testament to their failure.

'Did you get it fixed?'

Arthur took the mahogany box from Merlin's outstretched palm, treating the delicate, expensive instrument with the reverence that was its due. It had been a gift from his father on his natality: richly decorated and eminently practical. Yet the truth was that, the last few times he'd attempted to use it, the needle had swung wildly back and forth, as if it were as lost as Arthur himself. 

'There was nothing wrong with it, apparently. The artificer suggested there was some kind of... interference.' Now, as he opened the lid, Arthur hoped, rather than believed, that the man had been right.

Grimacing, he watched the metal needle dash madly around the dial. Once it had moved in a graceful sweep. Now, it twitched and shivered. He waited, his heart pulsing beneath his ribs and a frown creasing his brow, trying to read some kind of order in its chaos.

'Still broken then?'

As if the instrument somehow heard the words, the needle stopped, shuddering to a halt like a dog pointing towards downed prey. Arthur blinked, cautiously repositioning the dial and watching it hold its course, arrowed resolutely to where Merlin stood a few paces away.

Arthur swallowed, his tongue darting out to wet his lips as he frowned down at the device in his hand. 'Merlin, move.'

'What?'

'You heard me. Move. Take three steps to your right.' 

Merlin sighed, rolling his blue eyes, but did as instructed. He cocked his head, but if he was waiting for some kind of explanation from Arthur, he'd be disappointed. After all, how could he explain the fact that, with every long stride Merlin took, the needle point followed him in a confident arc?

Arthur sighed, rubbing a hand across his forehead and wishing he could banish the ache that had begun to bloom behind his eyes. He has no idea what to make of the compass' strange behaviour. It wouldn't be the first unusual occurrence that seemed to revolve around Merlin, and no doubt it wouldn't be the last. 

Perhaps, he thought with an inward snort of laughter, it was the maddening idiot's magnetic personality messing with it. Maybe, much like Arthur himself, the compass was oddly fascinated by Merlin. Either way, it seemed the thing had far less interest in helping them get home than it did with following every shift of Merlin's lanky frame.

'Move back,' Arthur ordered, his tone curt. 'To the edge of the clearing. It must be something you're wearing or carrying that's confusing it.' 

Absently, he noticed some of the blood leave Merlin's face, leaving his skin pale. He bit his lip, and in other circumstances, Arthur might have demanded to know what had him looking so worried. Yet before he could speak, Merlin obeyed. Such behaviour was novel enough, but it was the compass that really held Arthur's attention. Where a moment ago it had pointed straight and true, now it began to whirl once more, dancing around in a desperate hunt for the influence that would tether it in place.

On the edge of his hearing, Arthur thought he heard a whisper: something that shaped words he couldn't understand, no louder than the lightest summer breeze. As if conjured by the thought, a soft wind blew, stirring the mist into whorls of white.

'Hey look! The fog's lifting.' Merlin's voice sounded bright and forced, but when Arthur glanced up, he realised he was telling the truth. As if that breath of air was all that was needed, the curtain of white began to dissipate, melting away as the sun's warmth touched the damp air. 'I suppose we won't have to sleep out here after all!'

'It seems not.' Arthur pocketed the confused compass and hefted his crossbow, turning around to scowl at the gleaming edifice of Camelot looming in the distance. They were barely ten minutes’ walk outside the walls, yet the two of them could have been wandering around out here without a clue for hours. 'Come on, Merlin. Keep up.'

It was only much later, safe and warm in his comfortable bed, that Arthur found his thoughts returning to the compass once more. Perhaps, he mused as he drifted off into a contented sleep, it had been pointing him in the right direction after all.

Not to Camelot, but to the young man who made the castle feel like home.

**Author's Note:**

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